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AJC Opens Central Europe Office In Warsaw

A

JC, the global Jewish advo-
cacy organization, opened
its newest international
office in Warsaw in March. Named
AJC Central Europe, it covers seven
countries — Czech Republic, Estonia,
Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland
and Slovakia.
David Harris
Why such an office?
There are several timely and press-
ing reasons for intensified engage-
ment.
These nations form one-fourth
of the current membership of the
European Union, hence they have an
important voice in Brussels, which
will only grow with the anticipated
exit of the United Kingdom from the
EU in 2019.
They are all deeply committed to
the transatlantic partnership and
their bilateral links with
Washington and, of
DEFENDING JEWISH
course, they are valued
COMMUNITIES AT
NATO members.
HOME AND ABROAD
They also have robust
ties with Israel, in some
JCRC/AJC, along with
cases described as stra-
co-sponsors Temple
tegic partnerships.
Beth El and the Jewish
Moreover, since the
Federation of Metropolitan
fall of the Berlin Wall
Detroit, will welcome David
and the end of the
Harris to Temple Beth El in
Soviet occupation,
Bloomfield Township from
all have witnessed a
7-9 p.m. Wednesday, April
renewal of Jewish life
19, for a discussion on
and a re-examination
foreign policy.
of their Jewish history,
The program is free and
a process which contin-
open to the community.
ues to the present day.
Registration is required at
And last but by no
davidharrisforeignpolicy.
means least, their
eventbrite.com.
geographical location

elevates their importance not only
for Europe, but also, of course, for the
United States — and for all friends of
the defense of European and transat-
lantic institutions.
At this time of uncertainty and
unpredictability in international
affairs, intensifying our dialogue and
identifying new areas for coopera-
tion become matters of the highest
priority.

WHY AJC?
The organization has long been
steadfastly committed to the deep
bonds, defined by both values and
interests, between Europe and the
United States; to the process of
European integration as the most
ambitious and successful peace proj-
ect in modern history; to the endur-
ing importance of NATO as a collec-
tive security pact; and to the defense
of democratic values and protection
of human dignity.
AJC is not new to Central Europe.
To the contrary, our engagement goes
back decades and is unique in the
Jewish world, so the establishment of
an office is the natural outgrowth of
longstanding involvement and activi-
ties in many spheres.

HIGHLIGHTS
As early as the 1970s, AJC co-spon-
sored the Polish American-Jewish
American Council in the U.S. This
was the first forum to engage leaders
of both communities. It sought to
deal with difficult issues that had at
times divided the two groups, as well
as identify areas of joint action, which

included a successful call on the U.S.
government to extend the visas of
Poles in America fearful of returning
to their homeland and facing possible
arrest after martial law was imposed
in December 1981.
Having been the first Jewish orga-
nization to call for recognition of
German unification, AJC saw the
enormous opportunities to write a
new chapter in European history by
engaging Central and East European
countries in their post-1989 transition
to democracy and, later, supporting
their EU and NATO aspirations.
Indeed, while the United States
hesitated to extend formal diplo-
matic recognition to the three Baltic
states, AJC wrote, on Aug. 27, 1991, to
President George H.W. Bush urging
him to do so. We said: “We respectful-
ly ask you to move decisively toward
early, formal recognition of the Baltic
Republics by the United States. We
believe that our country should
be among the vanguard of States
to welcome Latvia, Lithuania and
Estonia — formally and diplomati-
cally — to the community of nations.”
Two weeks later, in September 1991,
Washington took the historic step.
In 1995, AJC partnered with the
Warsaw-based Forum for Dialogue
Among the Nations to establish
the first Polish-American Jewish
exchange program, which has con-
tinued on an annual basis and now
boasts an alumni community of
hundreds of Poles and American Jews
dedicated to fostering strong ties
between them.
In 1997, AJC was the only Jewish

group invited to testify before the U.S.
Senate Foreign Relations Committee
on behalf of the expansion of NATO
to include the Czech Republic,
Hungary, and Poland. This came
after we had written to President Bill
Clinton as early as March 1994 urging
consideration of NATO membership
for these three countries.
Following our Senate testimony,
Jeremy Rosner, special adviser to
the president and secretary of state
for NATO Enlargement Ratification,
wrote: “Your testimony was tremen-
dously effective and compelling.
Several people in the room includ-
ing Senator (Jesse) Helms’s staff
remarked to me later that they found
your testimony especially powerful. …
AJC has really made a vital contribu-
tion to the debate on this issue.”
In the testimony, we planted the
seeds for a further round of NATO
expansion, in response to questions
from Sen. John Kerry, then a mem-
ber of the Senate committee: “It is
important to keep very much alive
NATO’s openness … to further waves
of expansion. To do otherwise is to
dash the hopes of tens of millions
of Europeans, from the Baltics to
the Balkans, that their future might
include membership in NATO, and
to imply a re-creation of European
spheres of influence, a profoundly
destabilizing step that could have
unintended, even unforeseen, conse-
quences.”
In 2004, the government of Poland
and AJC dedicated the Belzec
Memorial and Museum. An unusual
partnership between a sovereign

continued on page 8

Contributing Writers:
Ruthan Brodsky, Suzanne Chessler,
Annabel Cohen, Don Cohen, Shari S. Cohen,
Shelli Liebman Dorfman, Adam Finkel,
Stacy Gittleman, Stacy Goldberg, Judy
Greenwald, Ronelle Grier, Esther Allweiss
Ingber, Allison Jacobs, Barbara Lewis, Jennifer
Lovy, Rabbi Jason Miller, Alan Muskovitz,
David Sachs, Karen Schwartz, Robin Schwartz,
Steve Stein

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April 13 • 2017

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